The State of Indiana is the 19th U.S. state and is located in the midwestern region of the United States of America. With about 6.3 million residents, it is ranked 15th in population and 17th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area.

Indiana is a diverse state with a few large urban areas and a number of smaller industrial cities. It is known for the Indianapolis 500 automobile race, held annually over the Memorial Day weekend, and a strong basketball tradition, often called Hoosier Hysteria. Residents of Indiana are called Hoosiers.

The state's name means "Land of the Indians" and Angel Mounds State Historic Site, one of the best preserved prehistoric Native American sites in the United States, can be found in southern Indiana.

Indiana is bounded on the north by Lake Michigan and the state of Michigan; on the east by Ohio; on the south by Kentucky, with which it shares the Ohio River as a border; and on the west by Illinois. Indiana is one of the Great Lakes states.

The northern boundary of the states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois was originally defined to be a latitudinal line drawn through the southernmost tip of Lake Michigan. Since such a line would not provide Indiana with usable frontage on the lake, its northern border was shifted ten miles north. The northern borders of Ohio and Illinois were also shifted from this original plan.

The 475 mile (764 km) long Wabash River bisects the state from northeast to southwest and has given Indiana a few theme songs, On the Banks of the Wabash, The Wabash Cannonball and Back Home Again, In Indiana. The White River (a tributary of the Wabash, which is a tributary of the Ohio) zigzags through central Indiana.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia listing for "Indiana".